Soil conditions for planting can be divided into three categories. “Conventional till” soil is formed by working the soil into a garden-like condition before planting. Conventional till is loose and crumbly and has little intact plant residue, sometimes called “trash,” present on the surface. A second category is “minimum till soil,” in which the soil is only lightly tilled prior to planting. Minimum till is generally firmer than conventional till, and some intact plant residue is present when the crop is planted.
The third category is “no till,” which refers to soil that remains largely undisturbed from its natural condition. In no-till conditions, crop is planted among standing weeds, remaining plant root structure, and other trash. In the 1960s, no-till agriculture was not widely supported among farmers and agriculture specialists in the United States, but has since been embraced by farmers worldwide. It is now generally recognized that no-till provides certain advantages over conventional till, namely, less work, better moisture and nutrient preservation, less chemical loss and redistribution, less erosion and other benefits. These advantages are believed due largely to less disruption or working of the soil in no-till as compared to conventional till.
No-till planting is most commonly used in applications where a no-till drill is used to plant seed on a conventional farming plot in which the remainder of the previous year's crop is left intact, resulting in the type of “trash” described above. This trash is generally predictable and consistent throughout the farming plot, and many commercially available no till drills can effectively plant seed on such a plot.
However, now that no-till planting has been proven as an effective planting method, new applications for it have arisen. One such application that is growing in popularity is seeding wildlife plots, which may be located, for example, next to or within a forest or wooded area. Of course, unlike smooth and open rolling pastures and other conventional farming plots, wildlife plots can be fraught with severely uneven terrain, large rocks, fallen limbs, large weeds and other debris. These obstructions are of a much larger scale and unpredictability than those encountered in typical no-till applications, and they pose new challenges for no-till equipment.